To Medicare
I need help. I would like to speak to someone who can help me.
Time is running out.
What I want is to find a physician nearby (I live in Berkeley-
for 60 years and in my house for 45 years. I am soon to be 83.)
who accepts what Medicare pays, period. I do NOT want any insurance
company in affairs of my health. I have been with Kaiser almost as long
as I have been in Berkeley. I do not need anyone to manage my health
care, especially those who know nothing about OLD. They almost killed
me 7 years ago and since then all the MDs look13, sweet but not for me to
talk to, which is what most elderly people need...someone with listening
skills and a smattering of knowledge about the human condition...neither
of which do most MDs possess.
If I am not mistaken, it was the MDs who started this whole insurance
business, when their greed along with the AMA took over. Insurance has
absolutely no business in HEALTH. All they want is a free ride and nothing
but profits. We do not need that. The MDs wanted more money for their
services and sold their souls and got a lot of paper work and unscrupulous
profit oriented people to add to their coffers. How this was permitted I don't
know, but for some reason the MD has always held sway in our society. They
are rarely special people. In fact rather ordinary who are sometimes asked
to do extraordinary things. They are not really well educated either, but very
self-centered, arrogant and people phobic, hence the white coat and maintenance
of a position of one upmanship with those they see. I no longer refer to them as
'doctor'. This after I asked one young man his name and he responded, "doctor
so and so". "No dear. That is not your name. That is what you do for a living...as
plumber Smith or garbage collector Jones." By the way, our garbage collectors
do more to keep us healthy than all the MDs put together. Their salaries should
be reversed. As to diagnosis of illness, my mother did much much better than the
MDs and she didn't even have a High School diploma. We never even saw an MD
all the time we were growing up, except when I had my tonsils out.
So I don't go. I will no longer waste my time and money and good spirits to go
to Kaiser for anything. They do not know OLD, have poor people and listening
skills and are a waste of my time.
But, in my dotage I would like to find an intelligent, fairly well educated human being,
not too stuck on themselves for all the wrong reasons, who will take whatever MEDICARE
pays, which is more than enough for any working person, just to talk to, kick things medical
pays, which is more than enough for any working person, just to talk to, kick things medical
around with...eyeball to eyeball, equal to equal...intelligent and grown-up.
So I need to find a few I can choose from who are not greedy, like people, and I can go...most of the time just to talk about what is happening with me that they might have some knowledge about that they would share with me. As to 'specialists'...these days you seea different someone for your ear, your eye, your leg, your stomach and on and on and it is sick-making, not healing. Although Healing is hardly a word you would ever hear coming out of an MDs mouth. Not health either. In fact, if it weren't for some of us brighter people they see, they would never have realized how much what you eat has to do with your physical health. Maybe because if you eat right, you rarely need to see an MD...
So. Of course I am waiting for Single-payer or Medicare for all, where I can pick whatever MD I want and change if I am not pleased or displeased on my own time and get explanations for terms like "patient". I am not anybody's anything and I am not very patient.
Anyone who touches me and sees me undressed (although I will not take my clothes off anymore for any of them) I call by their first name and they, me.
So much, little and big is broken in our medical system, it is a crime. Hospitals, especially Kaiser are user-unfriendly, catering to the staff who treat you like a child no matter what age or experience you have had. Sometimes you find an enlightened nurse who knows exactly
what I mean. I have been known to refuse an MDs meds order. If I'm conscious I refuse all narcotics and usually sleeping pills,because I still sleep like the dead. It is backwards and upside down. We, the consumers know ourselves. These 'quacks' as my British friends call them, with luck, know themselves....not me. They NEED me all along the way to give them what they need to blunder through a diagnosis so that, with luck, they might be able to help. Acupuncture is often much more effective that 5 MDs put together.
Well you can see where I am with the entire medical profession. At this point, they do nothing right. I need to get OUT of Kaiser or I just die in my bed when the time comes with no consultation or appropriate treatment. I will no longer suffer fools. My money. My time. My body. I want decent, responsible, knowledgable. appropriate treatment whenever I force myself to go to them...which is also absurd...an elder getting out of bed at any time of day or night to GO TO a perfectly healthy MD...or dragging a sick baby out of the house to sit in an emergency room for hours waiting to be seen. I almost lost one of my newborn granddaughters to a very badly functioning ER, doing nothing when she was dying...because gunshot wounded men were lying on stretchers in the hallways. We left and went to Children's Hospital where they rushed her into quarantine and on the machines. O. I should write a book. I almost did just now. Believe it or not, I am a very likable person, with strong opinions about much to be sure, a political activist in my old age...on the computer...and a very happy old lady...as long as I stay away from medical people and places.
However, I'm smart. I grow older. Things break down. I'm strong and quite healthy, but I'm no fool. I want someone I can like. Someone I can trust...to know a lot and tell me when she doesn't know. That I would like. No insurance companies. She accepts 'gladly' what Medicare has to offer and all my health needs are met by this arrangement.
Is it possible? Are we there yet or is money still talking all over the place while everything else just keeps walking.
I need help. I doubt if I will use the service much or often at all. I just want it there if I need it. I am on some meds (which I never take, even OTCs) but which keep my BP that of a girls. So, I'm no dope. I do not feel any ill effects, even if they are going on inside. Six of one, half-a-dozen of another. I take them regularly and that is all I do regularly and I never go see an MD if I can help it. I need someone who doesn't need to be called by what they do, but rather who they are and will not refer to me as a "patient". I am a consumer of her services. That's it. I want someone who can have an intelligent two way conversation and consider it doing her job. There are some products I need to order regularly that are essential to my well being that I get through Kaiser at a greatly reduced rate being a member. What happens on Medicare with this sort of thing? I get free flu shots at Kaiser, which I didn't do this year. Just could not get myself down to that awful place. I understand I can go into any pharnacy and they will administer the shot free of charge.
I must stop now. I hope I am not just talking to the wall. I hope there is someone at the other end of this email and that this shall not be for nought, but that I will receive a reply addressing the issues that are presented here. I would gladly participate in an interview, preferably at my house for I rarely leave it. I am very happy and comfortable here. But other arrangements could be made if essential.
Please get back to me immediatly if not sooner. Time, as you said, is of the essence. That deadline looms
Sincerely,
Nura
aka Marcia Berman
Berkeley CA 94708
